A Choice of Evils

by Meira Chand

  ‘If I had not been here with you that day, then nothing would have happened to Lily or Flora. I cannot forgive myself.’ Her distress was obvious.

  He remembered then the scene when they had emerged from the pavilion. Dr Clayton was there and others. Kenjiro had seen Donald Addison and been filled by discomfort, knowing of his relationship with Nadya. He had slipped away quickly, embarrassed, seeing there was little he could do.

  ‘It is too dangerous for us to meet. We risk our lives.’ He stepped forward now and took her arm. She said nothing but nodded, looking down at her hands. He turned her towards him, staring into her face.

  ‘We took life from each other, whatever else died around us. Do not forget that,’ he told her. An emotion he had not seen before had risen in her face.

  ‘Is there something you wish to tell me?’ he asked.

  ‘I think Lily is pregnant,’ she whispered.

  He turned out of the temple. There was still an hour of light left. The sky was full of luminosity, the clouds darkening about the edges. They formed in ripples over the horizon, like hard sand on a beach marked by waves. His pulse still beat unevenly, although his body felt heavy and cleansed. He needed to think, to examine what had happened. He walked beyond Nanking’s walls, along the towpath beside a narrow inflow from the Yangtze. The sky was suffused by the setting sun. The sky was important to him. He could not understand why people, more often than not, rooted their gaze to the earth. The great walls of Nanking towered beside him, throwing a shadow over the water. He found a tuft of grass and settled himself upon it. Below him the water eddied about a rock. He tried not to think of the border of corpses, like wet bloated sandbags, that had so recently filled this stream. Now the river flowed forward anew, with a fresh charge of water. In this way too he must look at the future.

  Why had he gone with the woman again? He was chasing after the past, after emotions shared with Jacqueline that still drifted through his memory. In the darkness of Nanking the Russian woman seemed to float before him, like a ghost of that past life. Just the thought of her body sent the blood rushing through him once more. He remembered the whiteness of her face beneath him in the dim pavilion, her eyes half closed. He saw suddenly that she was not Jacqueline, and never would be, and that nothing could be restored. Innocence belonged to beginnings. He was a long way now from there.

  The shadow of the wall had darkened and stretched to cover the stream, enfolding him. Night was rolling in now beneath the clouds. In the distance the line of low hills was already swallowed by the dusk. He looked down into the stream. Beneath the water the weeds were a darkening mass. An object was caught amongst them, like a large, moss-covered stone. The current turned the thing towards him. He stared down into the face of a man. The eyes were open and gazed at him from amongst the weeds which wound about it. Kenjiro drew back with a start. He saw again the head of that long ago rickshaw-puller in Tokyo fall with a thump at his feet, and the hiss near his ear of the executioner’s sword. His heart beat in his throat. Below him in the water the current gently turned the head back into the weeds. Its hair streamed out like underwater ferns.

  All his life, since the Great Kanto Earthquake, and that day of the rickshaw man’s execution in the street before him, he had stood as if misaligned to life. Why had destiny now posted him here, to observe a world beyond comprehension? A feeling of loneliness filled him. He was forced always to stand outside the circle of things, as if to bear witness to the inexplicable. There must be, he felt, a reality beyond space and time and human faculty. He could give it no name, silent within him. Men were born spiritually unequal, he decided, but within them the thing that made them identical was their link with this unknowable reality. It was his task now to turn himself towards it. His own link to the strange forks in his life might then begin to show a meaning.

  He looked down again at the dark form of the head in the water. He felt there were tears to shed, not only for the poor befouled creature, but also for the man with the sword. In the heart of the murderer there must also be a longing for good, misguided as it was. He thought of goodness now as like the sun. It was passive and could not move towards him. It was simply there, behind everything, waiting to be found. But evil was all movement, dipping and curling, swooping down like a tempest to grip its victim. It found every chink in an armour, and entered. And not until it left, if it ever left at all, would you know that it had been. He sat immobile on the bank before the rotting, severed head, and began to cry for everything he had seen.

  27

  Divisions

  Mid-March 1938

  Nadya awoke the next morning and knew that everything was changed. It was as if she stood in a flood that during the night had risen considerably deeper. At the beginning of the siege this feeling, of sinking, was with her each day as she opened her eyes. It had filled her until she realised nothing could get any worse. Now even that, like some safety net, had given way beneath her. She was in some kind of free fall.

  Shaking herself awake, she remembered Lily, and then Kenjiro. The night before she had slept in a haze of exhaustion and not drawn shut the curtains. Now a strong sun filled the room. For the first time in weeks she heard a bird. What use were these indications of wholeness when the world had already cracked? There was something bizarre in the sudden tweeting of birds. Her body still held, like a shadow upon it, all the sensations of the day before. Her limbs, shedding sleep, felt heavy and luxuriant. She could not stop herself going over each movement of Kenjiro’s body against her, like some slow exotic ballet. And yet, yesterday, it had been different from that first time. There had been a grim separateness. Each took pleasure as they could, before they ran. She pushed herself out of bed. She was late for her work at the hospital.

  She was not as yet even sure her irrational fear about Lily was true. Why had she voiced it to Kenjiro? And if it were true, there remained the question of Martha. At the thought of Martha a chill passed through her. Because of this fear of Martha, she had waited all these weeks. And during this time Lily sat as ever in the delicate bamboo chair before the round table with her cards of Patience. She refused an offer to learn the polka. It was as if everything in her was stilled around something secret. She spoke with the ring of infancy, as if she had regressed in years. But because she smiled, ate dutifully, slept with only the occasional toss and turn, it was judged she was less in need of anxiety than the sullen, disorientated Flora. Nadya knew she must find the courage to speak to Martha, to lay bare her fears.

  Martha seemed divorced from the details of everyday life. She was buried once more in her work and was glad to leave the girls to Nadya to organise in her free time. Lessons had started again for them; two tutors had been found. It gave structure to the day and space for transition before decisions were taken. Yet even here Lily sat obediently with a bland smile. She answered questions, she remembered decimals, she completed homework, and yet Nadya had the feeling knowledge hung suspended in her, never sinking beyond the surface.

  It was an achievement to have persuaded the girls to walk by the river, further from the hospital than the city walls. Nadya was determined to continue her policy of getting them out. They must acquaint themselves again with the world, and breathe fresh air. They walked beside her dutifully. The sun now had a new warmth about it. It was the kind of day that in another time would have been perfect for the year’s first picnic.

  They came to a small gate in the old wall, which opened onto a quiet tributary of the Yangtze. Beyond the gate the scene was pastoral. The grass was a fresh new green and the water no longer stagnated upon foul garbage. There was a newness to things that infected them all, now that the city was behind them. At last there was no need to look fearfully into the sky. Bombers had lost interest in Nanking, and flew on to further destinations. At last there was a peace of sorts.

  ‘If I return to Shanghai why don’t you come with me? You could go to school and live with me,’ Nadya said to Lily. She had thought over the idea for some time
.

  ‘And I?’ Flora asked. There was a tremulous quality to her voice.

  ‘There are medical schools in Shanghai. Why should you think yet of America, especially in these times,’ Nadya suggested. Flora smiled for the first time in days, as if a weight had been removed from her.

  ‘Will mother agree?’ she asked. There was a note of excitement in her voice.

  ‘We shall see that she does,’ answered Nadya. ‘Look, already new life is forming.’ She bent down beside the river bank and, reaching into the reeds, fished out a mass of frog spawn. Lily gave a squeal of excitement. In the grass Nadya found a discarded army ration tin, and they tipped the frog spawn into it.

  As the girls looked into the water for further specimens, Nadya sat back on the grass. She saw now that Lily did not move with the agility of before. A cold, sick feeling filled her. She still prayed the pictures pushing into her mind were the abominations of fantasy. And yet the more she observed the child, the surer she was of the almost imperceptible swell of her body. She must speak now to Martha. It was not yet too late.

  Looking down into the river Flora could see the small darting bodies of fish, like quick moving shadows beneath the surface. There was a smell of freshness about. The terrible stench that had hung for so long over Nanking had gone. Everywhere the earth was sprouting. From the stumps of the willows Flora saw the first shoots of new growth. And yet, time was still divided in her mind. There was Before and there was Now. Nothing seemed to join the two. It was like being turned out of a warm bed on a cold morning. All comfort was ripped away.

  Flora looked up at the sky, imagining it like a great parachute, covering the whole of China. The sun burnished it to a pale pewter, like the underside of a fish. Thin clouds of a darker shade had begun banking up, stretching for miles. God must be somewhere, even if he refused to show himself when he was needed most. The prayer she had maintained throughout the siege, muttering like a mantra all day, had stopped on that terrible night the soldiers took them. Where was God? Why did he not hear? She could ask nothing of her mother.

  She walked on a distance along the river. Perhaps soon the town would bustle again. And her mother smile. Lily would argue as she had before, and boxes of Turkish Delight would arrive as always from America. They would forget all that had happened. She held her face up to the sun, even though for the moment it appeared to be hidden.

  She had walked a distance ahead of Nadya and Lily, and turned to retrace her steps. Now the river ran not towards, but away from Flora. A breeze blew in her face and soughed through the coarse, tufted grass. Ripples patterned the surface of the stream. As she gazed at the fast flowing current she met the eyes of a man, staring up at her from beneath the water. She stopped in shock, but felt no fear. At first she thought he might be a water sprite. Tales read long before returned to her. Now she saw it was just a head, sliced cleanly from a body. From beneath the water the man looked at her and there seemed nothing too terrible about him. His eyes bulged slightly in a staring manner, with an expression of grim surprise. His lips were thick and hung open. As she watched, a minnow swam between them and nuzzled at his teeth. She could make out his eyelashes, but it was difficult to say how old he was. There was a bloated look about him. His hair swam with the current, like luxuriant weed. It washed gently this way and that, sometimes half covering his face. At other times it streamed behind him, as if blown by the wind. She felt no repulsion. There was more a sense, as she looked at him, of things at last falling into place. A guide had been sent to find her. She knew then she had not found him by accident. Nor had he waited without reason for her here. Almost at once, with a strong tug of current, the head rolled on its side and disappeared, pulled deep into the shelving bank. Flora turned and walked back to Nadya and Lily. She knew now nothing again could ever be as it had been Before. Everything had changed.

  28

  An Unavoidable Decision

  April 1938

  They sat alone in the darkening room. The dusk expanded shadows about a mahogany desk. The glass panes of the corner cabinet grew thick and unreflective. The scent of pot-pourri overpowered, filling the room with the perfume of dead roses. Nadya wished she could open a window. Her head had begun to ache.

  At first Martha refused to believe her. Her expression compressed about the terrible idea. Silence swung between them. It had not been easy to voice her fear about Lily to Martha. Nor to suggest a termination of the pregnancy. What Nadya suggested was already, suddenly, a sizeable part of the hospital’s work. Up to fifty thousand women, it was thought, had been raped during the first six weeks of the occupation. All Nadya wanted now was for Lily to step anew into life. She wished also for her own guilt to be pushed at last behind her.

  ‘You know it is not just Lily to whom this has happened,’ Nadya argued.

  ‘And you know I don’t believe in these things,’ Martha replied.

  Her face closed upon emotion. She herself would perform no abortions, and until recently would have none performed in her hospital. There had been a long and difficult battle with herself, before she gave in to the pressure of her medical staff. The pathetic clamour of crowds of women, and the dour-faced Chinese doctors in the hospital, had eventually persuaded her. Even then she had specified, if a woman was healthy, married and neither under-age nor over-age, she should be encouraged to bear the child. Her doctors had stared at her in pity.

  ‘If we do not do this,’ one doctor warned her, ‘we may be responsible for the deaths not only of unborn children, but for a better part of fifty thousand women as well. Every quack or old crone left in Nanking will be called upon by these unfortunate women. If none are available, they’ll do it themselves. We will be left to try and save their lives. And these East-Ocean devil babies when they are born, will not be allowed to live by either their mothers or their grandmothers. One way or another their fate is death. These are special times and special circumstances. God will understand. This is an act of mercy we are being asked to perform.’

  Put like that Martha had been forced to look at the problem in practical terms. She knew too well the history of infanticide that in this land for centuries had been found necessary for survival. She should know, she had found Lily. Lily.

  ‘What is the alternative?’ Nadya asked. Darkness encased the room. Martha’s face had disappeared into the shadows of a winged armchair.

  ‘God forgive me,’ Martha whispered at last. ‘She has a rare blood type. Supplies of everything in the town are down to rock bottom and have not been replenished. I will not do it unless there is extra blood of her type. She still has a child’s body and the pregnancy is some months gone. It will not be easy on her.’ She tried not to think of complications. ‘But it will be even worse if she goes any further.’ Martha sat forward, sinking her head in her hands.

  ‘Will you tell Flora?’ Nadya asked. The thought of this extra weight upon Flora worried her.

  ‘Why did I not send them away?’ Martha leaned back again in her chair. ‘It was selfishness, my own need to be near them. I thought of myself before their safety.’

  ‘I think you should tell Flora,’ Nadya insisted.

  ‘Flora is still a child. It will upset her unnecessarily. Even Lily will not know what has happened. Anaesthetic will be our magic. For the rest I’ll make up some excuse. We will elaborate on the stomachache she has complained of to you. Appendicitis or something,’ Martha decided vaguely. ‘In her present blocked, amnesiac state, it’s not right to explain the truth to her.’

  ‘Flora is eighteen, no longer a child. She has seen too much. You should not lie to her. What if you cannot keep it secret? She will deal better with the truth,’ Nadya replied.

  Martha would not be moved upon her opinion. The smell of potpourri seemed now like a stench in the room.

  At last blood, of the right type but in a small amount only, was found from the Red Cross Hospital. Dr Chen was put in charge. Martha steeled herself to stand beside him in the operating theatre. It seemed at firs
t to have gone all right, until Lily began to haemorrhage.

  Flora was conscious only of the rushing of nurses up and down the corridor. She knew it was against the rules for a nurse to run. It did exactly what it did now, instil the fear of God into those who waited in corridors. They would not let her into Lily’s room, or tell her what was wrong in any certain terms. There was mystery of a chilling kind. The heavy, cold stone was there again in the lining of her stomach. They were treating her like a child. She was determined to know what was wrong.

  She pushed her way into the dispensary. The sun shone on phials of pills, liquids gleamed in jewel-like colours, transparent against the light. Nurse Tan, starched and efficient, lifted a bottle of blood on to a trolley. There were long coils of rubber tubing and apparatus of a complicated nature.

  ‘Who is that for?’ Flora demanded.

  ‘For your sister,’ Nurse Tan replied.

  ‘I want to see her,’ Flora said. Nurse Tan shook her head.

  ‘What is the matter with her then, that she needs all this blood?’ Flora demanded. The old anger with Lily washed over her. The cold stone in her stomach grew heavier.

  Nurse Tan frowned. Nobody had given her instructions concerning Flora, nor intimated the need for subterfuge. ‘These kind of complications happen sometimes. A transfusion is a simple procedure. You’ll see her in the morning,’ she said.

  ‘What is the matter with her?’ Flora insisted, unable to hide her agitation.

  ‘The same as is the matter with half the poor women in this town,’ Nurse Tan replied, turning down her mouth in a grim expression. Flora still looked confused.

  ‘Did they not tell you, she is pregnant? I didn’t even know there had been a rape. I can’t blame Dr Clayton for keeping it quiet. It’s terrible. But she’ll be all right. In the morning you can see her.’